Commuter Stress May Cause Decrease In Productivity

Life is getting more complicated, not less. As a business executive, what can you do to ease the burdens and increase the effectiveness of your employees?

Many of you are all too familiar with a daily commute fraught with gridlock, distracted drivers, and road rage. The grind of getting to work on time can wear your employees down, exhaust them before they even start their day, and heighten their stress levels. In fact, studies indicate that lengthy commutes can cause loss of short-term memory, increased sick-days, higher blood pressure, muscle tension, and an accelerated heart rate. And, the effects extend to mood and relationships issues. David Rizzo, also known as "Dr. Roadmap" and author of Survive the Drive! How to Beat Freeway Traffic in Southern California, says “You take that bad experience on the freeway right into the door of your home or into your workplace. It carries over and takes a while to wear off."

What does this mean for your business? Well, stressful commutes result in stressed out employees, which can result in lost productivity, reduced quality of work, and even poor customer relations.

Remember a few years ago, when a fiery crash wiped out a major section of highway that carries motorists from the Bay Bridge to a number of freeways in the San Francisco Bay Area? Surely those already over-stressed Bay Area commuters experienced increased anxiety from extended hours behind the wheel, added headache from having to find alternate routes, or taking over-loaded public transportation. Drivers in Denver, Colorado, faced similar challenges a few winters ago. With more snow days than seen in decades, winter driving conditions and their increased hazards waylaid drivers by heaping on as much as twice the normal driving time in their daily commutes!

So how do companies in California, Colorado and throughout the United States protect their businesses from the impact of commuter stress? They can do so by offering flexible work schedules and telecommuting. But to do telecommuting right—seamlessly, without interruption to your business or your customers—you need a technology solution that provides remote access to your entire corporate network, not just e-mail. ITonCommand is an outsourced IT solution that does just that for businesses in all sorts of industries. When companies turn on the power of ITonCommand, they get a hosted desktop and network solution that delivers all of their software, data, and collaboration tools from any Internet connection.  And they get if from an award-winning managed service provider.  

ITonCommand gives your business satisfied, more productive employees. “The holiday blizzard of 2006 shut our physical office down for more than 3 business days. Because we have ITonCommand, we were able to provide seamless service to our customers in 38 states and 3 countries,” said Chad A. Williams, COO/Managing Partner at Capital Investment Management, Inc. Chad and other members of Capital Investment Management’s executive team understood that telecommuting could alleviate unnecessary employee stress. And that lower employee stress would start the virtuous cycle of happier customers, a better reputation, and more business!